Radical Normality—Jesus The Christ, Part 1

March, 2005

by: Brodie McClain

A.W. Tozer once said, “What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.” Let’s not forget that Jesus is God and therefore the quote could just as well read, “What comes into your mind when you think about Jesus Christ is the most important thing about you.” What does come into your mind when you think about Jesus Christ? Right now, as you say that name… Jesus Christ… what fills your thoughts? Where does your mind run? What verses pop into your memory? If Tozer was right, then these are important questions.

I tend to think he was right. Matthew seems to agree as well. In his Gospel, Matthew centers his focus and ours on the person of Jesus Christ. He aims to put Jesus on display by showing that Jesus Christ is really Jesus The Christ. Growing up in the church I think for most of my life I thought that Jesus’ last name was “Christ.” His parents were Joseph and Mary Christ, his brother, James Christ. Over the years I eventually broke from that thinking but still did not appreciate what I came to learn was a title — Jesus the Christ. The title means Jesus the Messiah or Jesus the Anointed One.

In Old Testament practice a king, prophet, priest or some chosen instrument of the Lord would be “anointed” for special service. They would be set apart for holy use by the Lord. Thus Aaron and his sons were anointed, the tabernacle was anointed, and David was anointed (Exodus 30:30, 40:9; 1Samuel 16:12-13). This term “anointed one” or “messiah” eventually came to be used for the ultimate Anointed One. Psalm 2 describes this Anointed One as the King and in fact God’s very own Son, to whom God will give the nations as an inheritance. It was toward this Anointed One, this Messiah, that the Jews fixed their hope that they would be restored as the national power. They waited upon God’s Messiah, and they waited, and they waited, and they waited… For hundreds of years they waited in expectation of God’s Messiah who would restore His chosen people. Generations waited and died in waiting, but no Messiah.

Until that day the virgin gave birth to a child. “The waiting has ended!” states Matthew in the first verse of his gospel, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah…” The Messiah is here! His name is Jesus. But is this Jesus really the Messiah?